Hack Library School: Fall 2011 Kickoff!

I don’t know about you, but for me New Year’s is just one more night of food and fun in the season. The real new year starts in the fall, when classes begin.

If you’re starting or continuing your library school journey this autumn, you’ve had many years to perfect the rituals of the new school year. Be it ensuring you have the perfect pens and Post-it notes, setting up your study nook, researching professors, or mapping out your plan to keep it totally paperless this semester, welcome to the Fall semester! Here at Hack Library School, we’re excited for the coming months.

The Syllabus

Instructors: As always, Hack Library School continues to be by, for, and about library school students. Several of our original editors have graduated and are taking an alumni role as they intrepidly begin their new careers. Our continuing and new editors represent a broad spectrum of the information professions, and your voice always has a place.

Required texts: Nothing so formal here. We are open to thoughtful boundary-pushing content from any specialization (make that any profession), in any format, in any manifestation. We do have some recommendations, though: our list of LIS Blogs to Follow, and Semester One’s Greatest Hits, including our Hack Your Program library school profiles, the Declassified course comparisons, and TMI (Two Minute Insights) interviews.

Course Objective: To inspire, to provoke, to question, to change. How? This semester we’ll continue our series and posts on topics culled from discussions, the Twitterverse, and the blogosphere. We’ll respond to professional organizations, to schools, and to institutions, as well as grass-roots innovations and classroom discussions. We plan to explore emerging fields in LIS careers, the value of the MLIS, and other topics as they arise.

If you’ve Googled today you might have noticed it’s author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges’ 112 birthday. I find this thought from him to be particularly relevant in thinking about library school, the state of libraries, and our evolving profession:

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.

Congratulations, Chantale! Library school has its ups and downs, but I found that with a certain perspective, even the downs can become ups… and at the least, learning experiences. Thanks for reading, and for commenting. The more voices the better! Good luck next week (and for the rest of your time in lib school).